China to share up to 80% of assets in global corruption manhunt: expert

China will offer up to 80 percent of forfeited assets with the countries that help China recover wealth illegally transferred overseas, a mechanism to help China's efforts worldwide to hunt alleged corrupt officials, a top international criminal law expert said on Sunday.

According to the international practice dealing with the return of stolen assets to lawful owners, the confiscated assets will be shared with the country that suspects transfer their assets to or flee to. The proportion depends on its assistance to the recovery, Huang Feng, head of the Institute for International Criminal Law at Beijing Normal University, told the Global Times.

The sharing mechanism, which has been used by China when it launched its "Fox Hunt 2014" manhunt in July, can encourage other countries to help China to recover illicit money, as it becomes a gateway to settle economic disputes over the ownership of the assets and to compensate the foreign countries for their material and personnel costs, he said.

Through the international manhunt "Fox Hunt 2014," Chinese police have arrested over 80 suspects in 40 countries and regions allegedly involved in economic crimes, the Ministry of Public Security said Thursday.

Huang said that if US authorities provide "essential assistance," China will share 50 to 80 percent of the forfeited assets with the country, while the US will share 40 to 50 percent of the assets if it provides "substantial assistance" and "facilitating assistance" for less than 40 percent. Canada became the first country to sign an agreement with China to share forfeited assets that Chinese fugitives illegally transferred to Canada, news outlet cri.cn reported in July 2013. Canada requires a formal asset-sharing agreement before engaging in asset recovery efforts.

However, such assistance provided to Chinese police accounts for only a small portion of such cases, Huang noted.

Huang said that it is hard for Chinese police officers to provide evidence of suspects' illegal assets since many of them had been laundered in other countries.